Lettering and Art Software

[John Hollaway]

Can some of you recommend good, but easy to learn, lettering and art
software for use with my sign carving ventures. Thanks

[stevo wis]

John,
Are you just doing lettering and carving by hand?
For lettering, i just use Microsoft Word, choose a font that I like and make it as big as I want it, sometimes 2 inches or more.
I lightly glue it onto wood and then carve through the paper.
Stevo

[Jim Becker]

Unless it's been discontinued, I believe that Lee Valley has a lettering setup, but just using Microsoft Word or similar to make paper templates you can stick to the material, scribe your outlines and then proceed with your carving.

[Jeff Roltgen]

In consideration of the possibility this will become an ongoing venture, it's never too soon to learn one of the best/easiest and well supported. Vectric products are what I'd recommend, especially if you have a CNC (almost a prerequisite for sign making any more) or thinking of getting one eventually.

jeff

[Richard Coers]

I use LightBurn on my laser. Only costs $60

[Jim McCue]

Would be good to know if you mean CNC or hand carving. I will reply about hand carving, if you are into CNC there are subforums for that.

I don't use a special graphic program. I used to use corel draw or inkscape. I have a macintosh computer so use the basic preview app for images and textedit for text.

For text I think serif looks better or is easier to carve than sans serif. Learn how to install fonts on your computer. Some of them are proprietary and you have to pay, but there are a ton of free open source ones.

For images I use preview app. I just search images, sometimes using phrases like 'clip art', 'silhouette', or 'coloring page' to get simpler styles.

Both programs sometimes it's not intuitive to print images larger than a page, you have to poke around in the settings. Then print it out and tape it together.

To get the image onto the wood I have taped or glue sticked paper to wood and then carved through the paper. Lately I prefer to put graphite paper (from craft store) underneath and trace the outline, leaving graphite marks on the wood, then dispose of paper. I have read about using lacquer thinner or solvents to transfer laser printed ink to a surface but haven't done so.

[mike calabrese]

I was in the tee shirt printing business for last 17 years. I used Corel draw 12 for just about all art and lettering files. I also used it to cut vinyl signs etc.
Corel draw is quite simple and because it is a older version of corel, they are up to Corel 2023 now you can download 12 for free. here is one link
https://www.freesoftwarefiles.com/graphic-designing/coreldraw-12-free-download/
https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&client=opera&hs=Kkv&q=corel%20draw%2012%20free%20download%20full%20ver sion%20for%20pc&ved=2ahUKEwjj_K_C2pD_AhUumIkEHd5VBJgQmoICKAB6BAgPE A4&biw=1366&bih=619&dpr=1

calabrese55

[John Hollaway]

Thanks so much, everyone. You've given me plenty of leads to follow. What a great community.